Dubbo's up-and-coming artists celebrate their role models at the Young Archies

The Young Archies - a portraiture competition inspired by the Archibald Prize - invited budding artists between the ages of 5 and 18 to submit a painting of a person who is special in their lives.

This year, the Dubbo Regional Council received 175 entries from children across the council area with the best being selected to go on display at the Western Plains Cultural Centre from May 6 to May 28.

"The Young Archie Dubbo competition hasn't been held since 2017, so we have been really pleased with the response to the local competition," Dubbo Regional Council Education Officer, Rebecca Walker said.

"The entries this year are amazing, our region has some really talented up and coming artists across all the age ranges and we would like to thank all the children who submitted an entry."

On the exhibition's opening day, young artists and their families gathered at the gallery for the announcement of the winners. Artworks were judged by a panel of judges - including a representative from ANZ - on their merit and originality.

Winning the 5 to 8 years category was Georgia Riley with her portrait 'My sister Jean'. Madeline Clark was highly commended in the category with a painting of her aunty, Bo.

Blake Lambourn was announced as the winner of the 9 to 12 year old age bracket with a portrait of Evie and Elizabeth Schuster was highly commended with her painting of her sister, 'Cranky Pants'.

In the 13 to 15 year category Mia Furney, who painted a picture of her father, was announced as the winner. Highly commended went to Montana Teague with her portrait, 'Richard in a Suit'.

The final winner was Olivia Tisdell in the 16 to 18 years category who entered a portrait of her younger sister Jessica. Xuerui Song was highly commended in the age group with a portrait of her mum.

Ms Walker said it was fantastic seeing the quality of the artworks submitted and reading the stories of the people the young artists chose to depict.

"It has been wonderful to read about the people in our community who the artists have chosen to represent in their artworks, it really reinforces how important positive role models are to the young people in our community," she said.

"We really look forward to seeing all the families come to Western Plains Cultural Centre over the next couple of weeks and see the artworks the children have created."

Following the Young Archie Dubbo competition exhibition, the regional tour of the Archibald Prize will be on display in a ticketed exhibition at the Western Plains Cultural Centre from June 3 to July 31.

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